Interesting. I could see attribute being a useful limiter to the quality, as in purchasing the quality allows for a second specialisation in all skills associated with a specified attribute, though some attributes would be much more useful than others this way.

Hmm, that IS an interesting notion. Maybe if it came with an extended Intuition+[Skill] test as with learning skills but with an interval of 24 hours or something.

I'm not sure, but the only thing i got from that diagram is that a PH.D is a dick....

Attributes already play a heavy role in skills, IMHO. Perhaps 1 specialization being available to a skill for every 3 ranks (or fraction thereof).

I.E.: Skill of 1-3, 1 specialization possible; Skill of 4-6, 2 possible (double major!), etc.

There is that, too. It's just that a PhD does very little to increase the sum total of all human knowledge.

Because if a rigger wants to get a gunnery specialization, he has to raise his agility. That doesn't make sense - that entire character role is doing things with drones remotely)

Some skill linking doesn't make sense, particularly in situations where you don't roll an attribute to go with it.

Which is why I suggested use skill instead of attribute. See above. Makes the emphasis on skill rank more important, IMHO.

One thing I've had a minor issue with is how often raw ability is better than skill. Someone with Agility 6 & Firearms 1 should NOT necessarily be better at shooting firearms than a guy with Agility 4 & Firearms 3.

One way I have figured to address this would be to keep the dice pool as normal (Attribute + Skill + Modifiers) but limit the max hits to skill much like Spells are limited to Force. I know something similar has been tossed about regarding Matrix actions, attributes, & programs.

Unfortunately, I've not had a chance to playtest it to see how it'd work in-game.

First off, he isn't necessarily better since they have the same dice pool (have I missed something here?).

The 4/3 version could be considered slightly better than the 6/1 because he has a higher limit on certain skill modifiers. For example (switching to the Close Combat group) he can gain up to 3 dice from martial arts advantages whilst the other is limited to a bonus of 1. The 6/1 is generally rather more preferrable, however, because his raw ability will transfer to other applications and his next dice pool increase from karma will be cheaper, which together is why it costs rather more build points to be 6/1 than 4/3.

A better example for your point (if you don't mind me saying) would be the 6/1 guy who has almost no appreciable expertise in the skill being better than the 3/3 fella who has achieved a professional competency.

But then if one were to examine all RAW to this degree of detail I suspect this problem would not be high on the list. For a start, there are many skills in the Agility camp that bear little relation to each other yet the same attribute is used. Compare Infiltration with Gunnery, for instance. Overall it's a level of abstraction that I for one am happy with.

Re proposed rule: I thought the skill limit to hits was already a printed optional rule? Perhaps that's SR4a only.

Right, they have the same dice pools, but he is saying that someone who has a decent level of training (4/3) should (from a real world perspective) be better than what is essentially a physical savant (6/1).

He just wants skill to mean more than raw attributes, especially considering the relative prices. For 2xSkill karma I can become better in one skill. For 5xStat I can become better in a dozen skills. So, a suggestion of limiting hits to skill seems somewhat reasonable. Or, so that people who are lucky rollers aren't punished, perhaps have the maximum DP be limited to 3x skill. There really are so many ways to help bring skill into greater focus, just pick one and run with it.

Well, for starters, I appreciate all the good discussion (it's actually a refreshing change ) and different positions and ideas.

Second, I am thinking on the following:

* Attributes: Stay the same (jacked out attributes is not that difficult and have a more broad reaching affect)
* Skills: Raising the maximum to 9 (10 with Aptitude) with 7-9 costing x2 normal and 10 costing x3. If any of my players even gets that far, there is at least a progression to possible follow if we feel it needs to go higher. This will add, at max 4 more dice (1 hit) to the DP. There is also the side effect of raising the maximum modified skill rating as well to 13 and 15 respectively (IIRC that is). This may, or may not, have any appreciable effect in my current game.
* Specializations: The ability to have more than 1 specialization (after CharCreation) for every 3 ranks of skill, or part there of. (Skill 1-3, 1 spec; 4-6, 2 spec, etc)
* Professional rating (thank you Karoline): Using a hybrid of the original skill description and Karoline's DP concept. Still trying to figure out a way to cross reference the 2 and use them together.
* Hits cap: Still debating this one. It does make skill level more important, but something just feels...odd to it. Don't know just yet.

Any addition thoughts? This is still in the "taking shape" phase in my mind, but I always feel that to go farther, you have to solidify some thoughts as to where you might be going.

Thanks again all.

May have been mentioned, but here's what I would do to make Shadowrun an uncapped system.

Caps are still followed during character generation.
No cap on natural attributes once a character enters play.
No cap on skills once a character enters play.
Augmented cap still follows the 1.5x rule.
The augmented cap is either 1.5x the metatype natural cap, or 1.5x current natural value whichever is higher.
Aptitude is lowered to 5 BP, down from 10 BP.
Exceptional Attribute is lowered to 10 BP, down from 20 BP.
Lucky is lowered to 10 BP, down from 20 BP.
Natural attributes at character generation are limited as per current natural maximums.
Skills at character generation are limited to one 6, two 5s, or one 7 if you take aptitude.
Karma costs do not change at all.

That's not what he said, but ok.

I believe the balancing factor for the relative discount in upping the attribute is that very few characters will ever use most of the applications associated with it, particularly as for one-man tasks there will usually be a specialist in the team with a higher DP already. But that is purely mechanical point.

Assuming he meant 'as good as' instead of 'better than', yes, that is exactly what he said.

You are right, not all of the dozen or so skills that are linked to an attribute will be used, but at least 3-4 of them are likely to be, which makes stats comparable to skill groups with a few added benefits.

Please forgive the pedantry, but one can't assume the intent and the text are different and then assert they are exactly the same.

I apologize for not being clearer. Karoline is correct with the assumption made. I chose my words poorly but Karoline correctly deduced my intent.

If you wish to be obtuse by ignoring that what he said is intrinsically incorrect and doesn't match the entire rest of his post, yes. If however you wish to use the intuition and deductive reasoning of an average human to determine that he made a slight typo...

I have to agree with you that he did not actually say what I put, but I was correct in that it was what he was saying ie. attempting to say. Rather as someone who gives a speech about how gravity exists, and then flubs a word to finish with 'gravity doesn't exist', the person is still saying that gravity exists, despite the fact that they accidentally said that gravity doesn't exist. Intent in words is far more important and often clearer than what is actually said.

Yipes. Well I sincerely apologise for rubbing you up the wrong way, if that's fair to say. We must simply disagree in what constitutes reasonable assumption. I didn't want to second-guess the guy and even asked for a slight clarification, which I wouldn't consider obtuse I don't think. To be honest I expected the matter to be done at 'That's not what he said, but ok.' but I have this disability whereby I'm unable to not correct posts that incorrectly correct me. Apologies again (including everyone who's bored of this!).

I suppose so about the disagreeing.

When he says '6/1 should not be better than 4/3' and then goes on to explain a way in which to make a person with high skill better than someone with low skill, I figure it is quite a reasonable assumption to make that he intended to say that they shouldn't be the same, as opposed to saying 6/1 shouldn't be better than 4/3 when it isn't, as that would be absurd. As I said, seems like fairly basic intuition. I suppose the other assumption you could make is that he meant to say 6/1 and 3/3, but both arrive at the same point.

Hmmm. I wonder which one who needs to have the last word... will.

On a forum? Always the Admin.

The second part is what I was definitely considering, with the increased costs.

I didn't want to do 1.5times, since then someone with a 3 could only have a 4 augmented, or at best a 5. With the harsh BP cap already on Attributes that would just push people to juicing the ones they want to augment, causing them to potentially be more bloated than they would have been otherwise.

One thing I was considering for the cap was a sort of stress test if you were augmented too far past your natural attribute. So it's allowed, but things might get hairy under a stressful circumstance(causing negative modifiers to die pools and teh like.) Someone with a 3 who is augmented to a 7 would have to roll some sorta Body+Attribute involved test(if physical-not sure how I'd handle the mental), or take a -something modifier for awhile until they can rest. Not sure what the test window would be. I believe in these times the medicine is pretty good(Hell-I might even add a beneficial modifier in if you have better grades of cyber or cultured bio-reasons being it's better integrated into your system or something), so it should be fairly generous. It could be a raw ''Attribute plus 4'' but then the problem is someone with a 7 already, a +4 is only about half of their actual potential-someone with said 4 is doubling their potential with that. 1.5 times is a bit low, 2 times is a little high for people who already have 6's and would render anyone with a 6+ not even needed to roll most likely.

I have to ponder this a bit. I think there's a good houserule of an augmentation thing here somewhere.